The nose section of an aircraft fuselage is fabricated in a known way by the edge-to-edge assembly of a plurality of panels.
To achieve this, the panel edges to be joined are first machined separately, then welded together.
Machining the edges to be joined removes superfluous material resulting from the fabrication of the panels and smooths the edges in order to improve the quality and evenness of the joint between two panels.
As the panels are machined individually one after the other, the edges of two panels to be joined together are not necessarily complementary.
This results in a gap between the panel edges, which is variable along the joint, even more so when the panels are curved. This gap degrades the quality, efficiency and aesthetics of the weld, which represents a first drawback.
Moreover, the method of assembling curved panels can be complex, tedious and time-consuming because it is necessary to machine each panel individually on a machining table, move the panels to a welding table, position them edge to edge and then weld them, which represents a second considerable drawback.
Furthermore, it is not possible with the existing assembly methods to perform at the same time the machining, stripping and welding of a plurality of panels using the same device. In fact, the existing devices do not make it possible to have at the same time, on the same device, a space in which to move a machining and/or stripping tool along the external faces of the panels and a counter-support on the said external faces in order to weld the said panels, which represents a third drawback.